


Ghost of Tomorrow: Epilogue

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Series: Ghost of Tomorrow Multiverse [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternative Grieving Methods, BAMF Satine, Blood Magic, Corpse Desecration, F/M, Ghosts, Hopeful in Tone, Non-Consensual Corpse Posing, Possible Happy Ending for Ghost Obi-Wan, Sexually Provocative Poses?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-02-08 18:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12870129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Long ago, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi entered a Sith temple. Only one of them came back out. A certain Mandalorian is dissatisfied with the outcome.Satine doesn't have a problem with revenge: just murder. And you can't murder what's already dead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you're entirely content with the unhappy endings so far (and I really, really was, but this idea showed up anyway. Damn those brain sparkles), consider this a possible ending but not a required one. If you like it, headcanon it in connection to Ghost of Tomorrow, and whichever version of Satine's reaction to Qui-Gon you preferred. If you don't like it, pretend it never happened. 
> 
> If this is your first introduction to Ghost of Tomorrow, carry on and welcome.

 

A familiar figure entering the door of the temple yanked Obi-Wan out of his huddled misery in a corner opposite the opening he would never leave through.

She'd filled out, no longer the teenager he'd last seen. There were lines carved into her face that only long years could have put there.

Had a decade passed, with him trapped here?

He didn't find it difficult to believe.

“Get out,” he whispered, begging the Force for her to  _feel_ it somehow, even if just as an unbearable  _fear._ “Get out  _now,_ before they realize you're here.  _Please._ ”

The universe would not be so unkind as to force him to watch her die while he was helpless to do anything about it? It  _couldn't_ be. _Please no._

She seemed to know where she was going, pacing down the hall and then turning left.

A different fear seized hold of him. “No, no, no! Don't go in there!”

He stood in the doorway, bracing himself against the doorjamb—

And she walked right on through him.

He watched, mortified, as her gaze took in his very...  _very_ ... shriveled corpse on the altar. Tongue hanging out. Forefinger stuffed up his nose. The fingers of his other hand shoved up his ass. The words  _frip me, Qui-Gon_ traced in his blood on the floor.

Obi-Wan muffled a whimper.

The spirits trapped here had long ago run out of interesting things to do.

They'd taken great glee in posing his lifeless body while Obi-Wan tried everything he could think of to make them  _stop._ They found the whole thing very humorous until they grew bored and wandered away, leaving him to stare at what had once been  _him._

Compared to the things they'd done to his spirit in the years since, this was nothing.

But with the woman he  _loved_ standing there seeing it, he wasn't so sure anymore—

She took in the sight with cold eyes, a snarl just barely tugging at her lip.

“No, no, no,” Obi-Wan worried in a whisper. “Don't take it personally. You can't  _do_ anything to them. Just get  _out_ before they kill  _you too_ !” He could  _bear_ what they did to him. But if she died here, she was  _gone,_ the Force wasn't strong enough within her to end up trapped _—_

Satine lifted a knife from a sheathe on her thigh, and breathed against the blade. She stepped to the corpse and drove its point into the desiccated heart. It barely entered, the dried out mess not really offering much give.

“I command the unknowable to be seen,” Satine hissed.

Obi-Wan felt an odd drag, found her eyes staring into his.

He peered down at himself, found ghostly pale hands. He had feet that just barely brushed the floor, and his own robes.

When he looked up again, she was smiling right  _at_ him, her eyes sad.

“Can you see me?” Obi-Wan blurted.

She gave a nod. “Yes.”

“But— they will have felt the magick you used. They will  _come._ Please leave. Please  _live._ ”

The smile took on a cold edge, the fury in her licking at the surface again, revealing itself. “I will do both, and you're coming with me.”

Crouching down, Satine drew a second knife, slit her finger, traced the words on the floor over with her own blood.

“I accept the burden of this presence,” she murmured.

“What are you  _doing_ ?” Obi-Wan's head snapped up and he peered at the doorway,  _terror_ flooding him again. “They're coming. We have to  _run._ We  _cannot_ be caught again!”

He stared at the sword she'd drawn. “I love you,” he begged, “but no durasteel will—”

There.

The most powerful of the presences, spilling into the room. It was odd to see it stalking forward, instead of just feeling it.

“What do you call yourself?” Satine challenged.

“I am Lord Spair. And you, the wielder of old spells, why have you come here?”

Nothing betrayed Satine's plan. Not even a flicker of a smile.

_She's far too clever to tell him, but it won't do us much good—_

When Spair reached a nebulous hand for her throat, Satine deflected his arm with the blade, startling everyone present except for the Mandalorian.

“What is this?” Spair hissed, lunging forward again.

Satine lodged the point deep in its head and a strange scream echoed through the chamber.

The lesser dark ones retreated, just a bit, watching with wide-eyed disbelief.

Spair crawled backwards, darkness bleeding from his wound.

“Take it!” he shrieked, gesturing at Obi-Wan. “We're done with it! We don't want it anymore. Begone.”

A great wind dragged at Satine as if to blow her back down the hall and out, but she braced herself.

It stilled at last, the Sith watching her with wary frustration.

“Get  _out,_ ” demanded Spair.

And  _now_ Satine's lip curled into a grim smile. “Do you remember the coven of Dathomir witches you slaughtered? What was it? Three and a half thousand years ago now?” From her pocket, Satine drew a bottle.

“What do you  _want_ ?” one of the lesser Sith wailed.

Satine's eyes blazed in a feral, vicious light. “You cannot murder what is already dead.”

And then there was fire and screaming, and Obi-Wan had no solid idea of what was happening except that the beings that had tormented him over the past decade-plus were  _ burning  _ and strange feminine cackling echoed along with a green mist, and Satine pitched thermal detonators deeper into the building before lifting the corpse in her arms and racing back out of the Temple.

Obi-Wan followed to the door, knowing he would be yanked to a stop—

As Satine's foot passed the threshold, he found he could  _ too— _

Satine slowed.

“No,  _ run _ !” Obi-Wan cried, then realized there was a small shield bubble—

Satine slipped through it, and then the Temple exploded, massive chunks of rock hurtling toward them. They deflected off the shield as did the fire. As the shockwave of it passed, Satine stuck her arm out of the blue shimmering field, a small talisman in her hand.

Obi-Wan recognized the harried Sith trying to flee from the witches, released from the Temple's hold by the structure's destruction—

He watched in shock as they were sucked into the small box, one after another.

He felt the witches giggle, felt a strange blessing fall on Satine's head, and then they became one with the Force, drifting away like he  _ should  _ have, a decade ago.

Satine sealed the box, set it on the ground, and crushed it underfoot.

Obi-Wan felt the vibrating of the last, dying screams....

And then there was silence.

He watched what was left of them scatter into the Force, no longer conscious, no longer able to harm.

Their energy would be used to create new life now. To help the jungle claim the ruins, to fill this world with nature's light again.

Fingers reached for his face.

He looked back up into Satine's own, saw a silent tear slide down her cheek.

“I have missed you, dear jetii,” she whispered.

For a moment he remembered what it was to be unable to  _ breathe _ , to think he might weep—

“What were you  _ thinking _ ?” he somehow managed to gasp out. “You  _ reckless,  _ battle-happy—”

“Mando?”

“ _ That _ ,” he sputtered. He peered down at the body tilted oddly on the ground, fingers still firmly penetrating itself. “Why did we have to bring  _ him _ ?”

Satine chuckled, leaving the tear to dry where it rested. “Because that skull is mine, darling.”

“Can you  _ salvage  _ it?” Obi-Wan asked, not quite convinced, frowning down at the shriveled skin. 

“It might require some boiling, then drying and salting, and nothing will take away the stains, but it is absolutely salvageable, my dear. Now, the visibility binding will keep you visible unless you actively try to conceal yourself.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “I'm not going to dissipate now that I'm not trapped by the temple?”

“Obi-Wan.” Her expression turned grim, her voice braced for disaster. “I could free you. I have an extra trap. I could lock you in a box, then destroy it, sending you into the Force.”

Obi-Wan found that the prepared sadness in her eyes opened up an ache within himself. “My other options?”

“You come and haunt my castle.”

“Are you serious?”

“Certainly. My term as Duchess is over, the kingdom is in other hands, and I have at little place tucked away on Kalevala.”

“A little castle.”  
“ _ Yes,  _ a little castle. Your spirit is bound to me now instead of those rocks over there, so should you choose to come, you'll be fairly grounded. You won't be able to planet-hop without me, but you  _ could  _ accompany me on trips, should you wish.”

“All I know is I want to get out of  _ here.  _ I have reached a point  _ beyond  _ feeling revolted by this planet.”

“Why? Isn't the jungle beautiful? Especially with the planet low in the sky?”

“I'd be content to never set eyes on Yavin again,” Obi-Wan muttered. “Can we cut my head off and leave the body here? Or... maybe... burn it or something? I can't stand the sight of it.”

Satine sent him a wide-eyed, innocent and puzzled glance. “But it's such a charming tableaux.”

He scowled back.

She chuckled.

“You won't be able to cut through the jerky, though, probably,” Obi-Wan grumbled. “You don't have a lightsaber, by any chance?”

“No. I'm going to put it in a sack so it won't be obvious to the pilot I hired, and you can either hide in there with it, or under my skirt.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Obi-Wan gasped.

Her smile beamed as she proceeded to wrangle the twisted corpse into a large brown gunnysack. “Well?”

“I don't—”

“He will be able to see you, remember.”

He scrunched his nose, then headed for the bag.

“Darling.”

He  _may_ have made a slight grunted whimper noise in response.

“I'm wearing pants beneath the skirt.”

“ _Oh._ ”

With significant relief, Obi-Wan backpedaled away from the sack that Satine cinched closed, then swung over her shoulder.

He walked beside her until the ship was in view, and then he scooted under her skirt and held on to one knee, trying to not get left behind enough to be seen under the edge of the hem.

He only came out once the pilot was quite busy in the cockpit so he could peer out a window at the jungle one last time.

Memories from his death came flooding back,  _too_ intense, terribly difficult to recognize as  _memories,_ instead of something happening  _now—_

“Obi-Wan, I need you to listen to my voice and take a deep breath.”

He squinted his eyes open to discover the lights flickering madly, the walls creaking, objects rattling—

“That's it, beautiful ghost. Udesi.”  
He moved away from the window to curl up on the acceleration couch by her side.

As he relaxed against her, the lights went steady again, the ship stopped quaking, and his pain decreased.

“You came for me,” he whispered.

She smiled down at him. “I needed my memory piece,” she teased.

He sobbed a laugh, and for the first time, felt like death might not be the end of all happiness for him after all.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

“He is infuriating, but he is family, and if I don't want to create a schism, I have to offer the castle for him to stay in while he's here.”  
Obi-Wan sat in the chair to Satine's right, his not-quite-physical elbows planted on the table and a grimace twisting his face. “I didn't like him when I was alive. He _lives_ to make people miserable.”  
“True, but we have an arsenal now that we didn't have before.”

The ghost stared at her in puzzlement. Satine pointed the morsel skewered on her utensil at him and smirked. “A haunted castle.”  
“What,  _me_ ?”

“Yes, you, silly little benign ghost. But  _he_ doesn't know that.”  
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Dear Force. You want me to make frightening noises and angry faces? Throw some objects around the room?”

“No.” Satine would have choked had she put that bite in her mouth, so it was a good thing she  _hadn't._ “This isn't a comedy holodrama, Obi-Wan.”

He looked just a little relieved, but also the mischievousness glittered in his eyes now. “I should probably wear a sheet with eyeholes cut in it.”

“If we make this enjoyable, he'll come  _back,_ ” Satine threatened.

Obi-Wan looked properly, if exaggeratedly, horrified. “What  _did_ you have in mind then?”

“Maybe you could just be  _there_ sometimes, silent and ghastly— but don't overdo it— and I'll pretend I can't see you.”

“Hmm. Maybe in his bedroom in the middle of the night? Hide there until he falls asleep, then wake him up by knocking at the window, and just be standing there when he rolls over?”  
“ _Yes._ ” Satine grinned. “Can we put a holocam in there?”

Obi-Wan looked demurely down at his hands. “If he  _found_ it, he'd think it all an enormous prank.”

“Well, then, make sure he doesn't  _find_ it,” Satine shot back, and then they both were giggling like a couple of children.

After three years “alone” in her castle on the hill behind the town, the general consensus of the population was that Satine Kryze had gone just a  _touch_ mad. If this was madness, Satine hoped to remain insane forever, because it was  _delightful._

Since when had dreadful relatives ever been a source of  _enjoyment_ ?

That was how they realized Obi-Wan couldn't be seen on holo, and thus started the long hunt of experimenting with esoteric image-capture methods just for the sheer hell of experimentation.

There were a  _lot_ of images of Satine looking slightly amused inside her castle, and no one would ever know Obi-Wan had been making faces right beside her... though an observant individual might notice she never seemed perfectly centered in any of the pictures.

They finally found an arcane method that produced a black-and-white image onto canvas. Obi-Wan and Satine huddled over it as it cured, then laughed together as a vague impression of Obi-Wan could be seen behind Satine's shoulder.

Long after Satine retired to sleep, Obi-Wan held the picture and stared down at it. Satine looked almost grim in this one— there'd been a household emergency during the taking process, but she wasn't allowed to  _move_ until it was over.

Obi-Wan smiled, just a little, over the flash in her eyes.

As for himself, he would undoubtedly be pronounced by the world to be a fake.

_But it's me._

His fingers brushed over the surface as he thought. He hadn't realized how much he missed being able to be  _seen._ To leave a record of himself in more than just letters in steam on a mirror.

He knew what he needed to do. A soft smile touched his lips as he stared down at the vacant-gazed image of himself. With loving fingers he wrapped it up, and drifted to the loyal guards who had refused to leave Satine's side when she retired.

Obi-Wan smiled, knowing from past experience they wouldn't be able to hear a word he said, would just see his lips silently moving. He held out the sealed package, and looked imploringly.

(He felt he'd gotten rather good at that, the lost kitten look that had the castle's staff bending over backwards to help the poor, brokenhearted, harmless ghost. Hell, even the cook's daughter left cookies out for him on the Night of the Dead.  _He_ couldn't eat them, but Satine did, and it delighted the little girl the following morning when she watched the security holos and saw the moment Obi-Wan stole the cookies from their plate.  _There_ one moment, gone the next.)

Aramis took the offering and inspected it. “A mail package? You want it sent?” he asked, glancing up at Obi-Wan.

The Padawan gave an earnest nod.

“I'll take it with me to town in the morning,” Aramis promised. “It'll be out with the noon mail. Is that soon enough?”  
Obi-Wan gave him as sweet a smile as he could manage, and the guard chuckled.

“Where do we send it?”

Obi-Wan coiled his braid around his hand and tugged on it.

“Jedi Temple, then,” Aramis concluded. “Care of—?”

Oh, boy.

Obi-Wan gave him an apologetic smile, then turned to the opposite wall and  _concentrated._

He couldn't manipulate a pen well enough to leave legible writing, which was why he hadn't addressed the package himself, but he  _had_ discovered he could write on walls.

With what appeared to be blood.

_The absurdities of being dead,_ he mused as crimson bloomed, dripping as he laboriously spelled out  _Qui-Gon Jinn._

He turned back around, feeling just a bit concerned. It wasn't a very  _benign_ looking thing, after all, and he didn't want kind Aramis to think Obi-Wan was sending a bomb or something disastrous.

But instead of that, the man was printing the address and name onto the package.

Tears stung Obi-Wan's eyes, and when Aramis turned the whole thing so he could read it to check, Obi-Wan managed a tremulous smile and several tiny nods.

“Thank you,” he whispered, even though he knew he couldn't be heard.

“Not a problem.”

Obi-Wan focused again, leaving behind his gratitude for the casual insanity of Mandalorians and their comfort with the uncomfortable so he could clear the wall.

It made a heinous mess for the caretakers to clean up otherwise, and Obi-Wan hated to make more work for other people.

The dripping letters vanished one by one, as if being unwritten.

_There._

Obi-Wan was about to drift away when he remembered something and moved to Aramis' companion. He mimed rocking something cradled in his arms, and the other man's face lit up.

“She's sleeping through the night, now, but we're very tired, her mother and myself. Thank you for asking.”

Obi-Wan ducked his head, feeling pleased.

_Maybe I can't leave a visible record of me, but people seem to remember me fondly. Perhaps leaving a record in the hearts of decent people is fame enough._

From the odd content in his being, Obi-Wan suspected it really was.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Satine staggered out of bed, cursing the concept of  _alarm chronos_ and dragged herself into the bathroom. She found a steam-fogged mirror with a heart drawn in it.

A smile quirked her lips as she heard the outer door to her rooms shut, Obi-Wan leaving so she could shower and get dressed in privacy.

_My conscientious little ghost._

She wasn't quite sure why they all referred to him as  _little,_ but she'd heard the staff do so as well. Even the cook's  _daughter_ did, and the spindly seven-year-old barely reached Satine's waist in height.

Wherever he was going, Satine suspected he would try to bring a smile to someone's face if he could.

For a being who had been destined to travel the stars and save worlds, he had adjusted to domestic life surprisingly well.

_But I can't help but wonder if there's something more that he wants, that he's just resigned himself to never attaining._

And if she could  _fix_ that.

 

* * *  
  


“This is  _cruel._ Even for  _her,_ this is cruel.”

Qui-Gon let the image fall to the floor, his heart hurting so terribly he wondered why it didn't just spark a heart attack or spontaneous death.

Why would Satine Kryze send him a picture of herself, except to prove that even now, so very many years later, she was still furious with him?

That he could have accepted as some Mandalorian tradition he didn't know about yet. As close to a threat as she would allow herself to get, perhaps.

But to  _alter_ the image, to  _put in_ that strange echo of a shape, that  _almost_ looked like  _Obi-Wan_ ?

_You loved him. How could you do something like this?_

You didn't fake images of your dead loved ones. You just  _didn't._

_Maybe Mandalorians do._

He checked the package again, but there was simply the picture, and no writing anywhere to explain anything about it.

Qui-Gon sighed, so tired and  _done_ with it all.

He had no friends to turn to, with Tahl and Micah dead, and Mace barely able to stand looking at him anymore. And any time spent with the child he'd found on Tatooine was monitored, as if he might  _hurt_ Anakin Skywalker.

It stung, but what stung  _worse_ was the quiet voice in his soul, suggesting it was wise.

There had been another child with beautiful blue eyes who looked to him with absolute trust.

And he'd—

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and sank into the closest chair.  _It's probably better that Plo is training Ani._ Qui-Gon wasn't sure how much of his heart he could give to a Padawan. How much of his heart was  _left._

He was tired.

He glanced again at the picture, felt anger stir within him.

He was tired, and you know what? He missed Obi-Wan too. The sly smile when Obi-Wan was about to make fun of him. The quiet, dry humor. The pensive furrow that formed between his brows. His laugh— on the rare occasions it surfaced. The way he said  _master,_ as if Qui-Gon were the center of his universe.

_I didn't listen. I got him killed._

Maybe he deserved to suffer, but he would make damn well sure he understood why Satine Kryze thought it  _permissible_ to use  _Obi-Wan's memory_ in such a disrespectful way.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan danced his fingers across the floor, the silver and white tooka watching the flicking movements with narrowed slits of eyes, tail lashing, claws at the ready. It pounced, then reared back, baffled that its paws went  _through—_

With a smirk, Obi-Wan skittered his fingers to the side, and the feline couldn't  _stand_ it any longer, and pounced again. And again. And again.

“Why are you tormenting the cat?” Satine asked, peering over the edge of her desk, the pair of spectacles perched adorably on the tip of her nose.

His beautiful duchess didn't seem to appreciate the tole the years were taking on her, but Obi-Wan didn't find the few wrinkles by her eyes to be particularly distressing. And the spectacles were wonderful. Especially when she was curled up in the giant stuffed chair by the fire, nose in a physical book. Obi-Wan could watch her for hours that way.

“It's playing,” he informed her, “not tormenting.”

“You have been a ghost far too long,” Satine retorted.

Obi-Wan grinned.

And then  _that_ presence was  _here._ At the door of  _their castle,_ and Obi-Wan's blood seemed to run cold, and the air was stolen from his lungs, and he couldn't quite see—

He wanted to race to meet him, but he found himself terrified, dreading the moment.

_What if he is disappointed in me for not dispersing to the Force? Or for not finding my own way out of the temple? Or for being weak enough to_ die  _there in the first place?_

Satine was speaking, but Obi-Wan couldn't hear her. He had longed to see his master, but now that the time was here, it was  _too soon._

_If he asks me to become one with the Force, will I do it? Will I_ leave  _her?_

Obi-Wan shivered, dreading leaving the beautiful sunbeams that slipped through stained glass windows in a summer's morning. Attending Satine on a quiet picnic in the beautiful forest, or on the mountainside looking down over the picturesque village. Tormenting the cat. Cookies on the Day of the Dead. Watching haunted house holos with Satine to get new ideas for skills to try out.

_I don't want to go._

_Please._

And then Obi-Wan found himself  _not_ in Satine's study, and instead in the attic.

_And apparently I can teleport if distraught._

 

* * *

 

Satine blinked as Obi-Wan disappeared.

She felt no fear for him, since the magicks binding him to her would need significant effort to undo. He couldn't just accidentally cease to be.

_So either he's learned to hide, or he can think himself to a new place._ After trying both of those stunts multiple times in multiple ways, Satine expected they would be celebrating a victory later that evening.

_But what had you so undone?_

“My Lady? There is a guest in the hall, and he's refusing to wait—”

Heavy footsteps on the stairs—

Satine frowned, fingers closing around the letteropener. She looked down at the sharp thing held like a knife in her hand, and mentally yelped,  _What am I doing?_ She forced her fingers to relax and stood, moving to stand in front of her desk with her hands carefully gripping the edge of the wood.

She held her head up, allowing herself the haughty glower.

“The guards are on their way up,” the voice came through the comm again.

But as the figure stepped through the doorway and the tooka looked up at it and growled, low in its throat, Satine tapped the comm. “That won't be necessary, thank you. We'll be fine.” Satine moved back around to sit in her chair.

Qui-Gon Jinn walked over and threw an image down on her desk.

“How dare you?” he asked, voice quiet and grieved. Any fire he may have intended to put into the question must have died on the way here. Satine suspected he'd meant to be much more angry, what with coming  _all the way to Kalevala_ and then stomping  _the whole way through her castle._

_You're getting old,_ she realized.  _Very. Hell._ I'm  _getting old._

Satine perched her spectacles on her nose again to peer down at the image. “...How did you get this?” she asked, confused. It was that first picture she and Obi-Wan had managed to make  _work—_

“It was sent to me from the Kryze family residence,” Qui-Gon murmured, sinking into the visitor's chair, hand coming up to shadow his face. “Have I gone mad? Can you see it?”  
“See what?” Satine hedged.

Qui-Gon shook his head. “I was so angry, when it first arrived, but when I tried showing anyone else, they all told me I was imagining things.”

“Ah—”

“Some sort of reflection of the photographer. Another image that was being cured on top of this one that left a vague imprint. An atmospheric disturbance in the room where you were being photographed. Smudges on the wall behind you. Water damage on the image itself.” Qui-Gon slouched in the chair. “Have I lost it to the point where I'm seeing him places, now?”

Satine set the image down, understanding why Obi-Wan had fled.

_You sent it to him. But why? If you didn't want to see him? And if you_ did  _want him to come, why did you flee?_ That part, at least, confused her.

“I did something ill-advised, Jinn. I sought out the temple on Yavin IV, and I destroyed it.”  
The hand fell away and Qui-Gon stared at her as if she'd completely lost her mind. “What?” he asked, voice faint.

“I destroyed all the spirits trapped there except for Obi-Wan's.”

“No, go back,” Qui-Gon protested. “You  _destroyed_ the temple.”

“Nothing is impossible, Qui-Gon Jinn. Some things just require more arcane faith than others. Fortunately for you, I was willing to believe in anything needed to free Obi-Wan.”

Qui-Gon's head thunked back against the wall. “The real world doesn't work like that, Satine.”

A smile curled her lip.  _Oh, doesn't it?_ “I seem to remember your skepticism got your apprentice killed, Qui-Gon. Isn't it time to hold your belief in nothing a bit less tightly?”

“Just say what you're trying to say.”

“Obi-Wan's spirit is here, and in that picture.”  
Qui-Gon scowled at her. “Like hell. And this level of deception is beneath you.” He stood up to storm from the room and came face-to-face with a breaking Obi-Wan in the door. The Padawan looked about ready to weep, his expression so  _needing_ and  _pleading_ , and—

“Master?” Obi-Wan whispered, and Satine's heart broke for him.

Qui-Gon stared at him for a long moment, then toppled over backwards, hitting the floor with a thud. The cat stalked over to peer down into his face, and meowed.

Satine stared over her desk at the unconscious form. “Did he just faint?”

Obi-Wan wrung his hands and crouched over his master, tears slipping down his cheeks. “He's been letting himself go. Just  _look_ at him.” Obi-Wan reached out to touch vicious scars on Qui-Gon's hands and arms, wounds from battles that he had refused to treat and had healed ugly. His body was razor thin, his cheeks hollow, eyes sunken. 

“No one's been taking care of him!” Obi-Wan mourned.

_No one has wanted to, after what he did to you._

Except for Obi-Wan Kenobi himself.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Neither being knew what to say.

Qui-Gon sat in the chair, staring at Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan stood there, hands clasped before him, looking so earnest, hopeful and sad.

Satine waited, but the minutes dragged on without a word being spoken.

“I left you there,” Qui-Gon said at last, only to have his voice crack and fail, his eyes glittering with tears.

Obi-Wan's forehead wrinkled, and he protested.

Qui-Gon's head snapped around to look at Satine. “What did he say?”

_So he can't hear him._

“He said that didn't stop him from loving you.”

A wretched sob tore out of Qui-Gon, and the large man curled forward over himself, the tears breaking free and taking their way.

Obi-Wan hurried to him, dropped down to kneel at his feet, and pale tears of his own slipped down his cheeks as he stared up into Qui-Gon's misery.

Satine stood and glided from the room, careful to shut the door quietly behind her.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan wanted so desperately to comfort his master, the man's presence here quieting an ache that had lingered with him for decades, but Qui-Gon could not feel his touch, nor could he hear his voice.

So Obi-Wan knelt by his knee and wept with him, feeling as if his heart would break into tiny pieces and kill him all over again.

Satine clearly wanted to allow them privacy, but Obi-Wan needed a _voice_ right now, so he hustled out to retrieve her. She followed him back in, the picture of reluctance, but Obi-Wan couldn't worry about her feelings right now, when his own and Qui-Gon's were splintering them both to wreckage.

“He's saying,” Satine prompted, looking to Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan nodded, and started in, with Satine echoing his words. “I'm not suffering anymore. Master, you're still grieving like I'm still trapped in there, but Satine rescued me. It  _stopped._ ”

“It stopped because you  _died,_ ” Qui-Gon protested, but at least he sat upright again.

Obi-Wan felt his face scrunch up, saw Satine's do the same.

_Things got... worse. After._

But that wasn't what was important to Obi-Wan, right now. “Qui-Gon Jinn, I am not in pain right this second.” He straightened up to his full, sadly lacking, height, and Qui-Gon's eyes went wide as he saw the fire in Obi-Wan's own. “No, I do not go adventuring across the galaxy, but I think I've had quite enough of that. I like that I know every inch of this castle, and I know that none of it will attack me. I like seeing the same people day after day, people who like me and are not scared of me. And I like seeing visitors, and playing with them a bit. If they're nasty, then one way. If they're sweet, then a different way. I like being the resident ghost, and Satine—” He looked to her, and he could swear his heart pattered faster in spite of being non-corporeal. “Satine loves me. And I love her. I'm having a happily ever after  _right now,_ except that I fret about you.”

“Obi-Wan—”

“And yes, I  _do_ have good reason!” Obi-Wan huffed, storming over and fluttering his hands around Qui-Gon's wrists and biceps and near his face to the extent that Qui-Gon's eyes went even wider and he blinked rapidly. “You are  _not taking care of yourself!_ Are you  _eating_ ? Are you  _sleeping_ ? Do you stop when your body's had enough or do you just keep running and working? Do you get in fights you're not sure you can win? Master, you're not even  _patching your clothes!_ It's high time to sew a new set, and I  _know_ you have clever fingers for it, so why  _haven't_ you? It's because you don't care what you look like. You don't care, and you look like a forgotten, bedraggled, kitten, and I  _will not have it_ .”

No, he would  _not._

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan presided over the tailoring process, turning Qui-Gon this way and that to help the seamster, clicking his tongue and murmuring little bits of commentary and opinions.

Because there wasn't enough fabric in browns or tans to clothe Jinn with, Obi-Wan had picked out a pretty shade of deep blue-green that drew out Obi-Wan's own eyes, to Satine's amusement, and combined it with a textured white cloth, with midnight blue for the trousers and undertunic. Qui-Gon almost looked like an ocean, with the white crossing over his chest, the blue-green beneath it, and then the deep murk of the sea beneath that.

The cut was in the Jedi tradition, and when Qui-Gon tried to explain that the seams did not have to fall  _on_ his shoulders, they could be a bit wider, Obi-Wan heaved a longsuffering sigh, and signaled to the seamster that Qui-Gon was full of it.

The other man sent Obi-Wan a wink of agreement, and proceeded to tailor Qui-Gon's form  _well,_ the way Obi-Wan had always insisted on his own robes.

Satine sat back, highly entertained by the gravity with which Obi-Wan addressed the task at hand.

When it was done and Qui-Gon was fitted out in his new gear, and Obi-Wan had floated the old robes into the incinerator, much to Qui-Gon's dismay, Obi-Wan glided before them down to the kitchens, presenting Qui-Gon to cook and daughter with pride and concern alike.

Satine watched from the doorway, leaning against it and smiling as the child took the mission to feed him very seriously and also told him stories of the kind ghost with such delighted fervor that Obi-Wan's cheeks turned a faint pink color.

 


End file.
